Rite of Passage

solute summoning /  by Justin Harrison

Made in planning for the show. The format is wrong - I won’t have the space to fit this exact drawing, but I hope to make something close. There has become a deep satisfaction in the repetitive marks and fro what the summon. A variant of the paddle but more evolved, I could almost draw these all day, completely indulgent but who know what it would inspire.

I just don’t have the time in the day to make everything I would like, there’s the rub, to be selective in what I pursue, what feels most potent and alive?

This form that is suggested by the multiple marks is almost incidental but yet equal, the coming together of elementals, community expression. the larger form is empty yet present because of the others. The paddle form is modified - as I mentioned earlier evolving, to move not upon water but upon other. ‘To move upon other’ - I like that.

In the liminal, in passage, what has been ‘known’ is now fragemented, solute. I return to ideas of decomposition, autolysis, not as an end but as a translation of materials, of passing.

 

This took too long /  by Justin Harrison

This article ahs been on my bench for the longest time, I don’t know quiet why it took so long to make.

I’m really wanting to conclude one or two key pieces as I rapidly draw to a close of the MA. However I’m not sure this is wise as I try to acclimatise to a new way of approaching my work.

I’ve modified it as the details I first drew feel excessive and lack a certain honesty. I’m mindful of the work retaining it’s integrity. I’m mad because I know I can do the stitching better. But overall it’s ok.

I feel the colours the soft dense black of the burnt wood against the burnish copper next to the warm ochre of the leather all coalesce to make something more for me. The item a tool, a ritualised tool with a distinct purpose but obtuse as to what it is. Passaging through uncertainty requires rituals that are ambiguous at best.

I am tempted to fuss with it some more, extend the height of the burn, something about the aesthetics for me isn’t quiet right…

 

Unexpected /  by Justin Harrison

Something happened tonight, an unexpected flurry. I’ve been angsting about the final show. A little lost at sea with my work. I have ideas but didn’t feel convinced. The past week or so Ive been in the studio just making and doing a few drawings around concluding bits.

I sat down tonight to make some drawings, finalising some ideas and have instead generated a whole bunch more work to make. Too much to make for the show but that’s fine it’s work I can continue with after the MA.

The practice based research throws me at times, I feel like I should be in books and papers, which I do - and have too many! But the making and drawing is a valuable form of research and development not an end process - which I keep forgetting.

I now have a number of pages of sketches that I can work up into sculptures or more involved drawings.

But how that’s my question, what occurred to summon this? How do I keep it?

There’s some interesting bit happening for with the pot. (At the back of my head is the smoking pot from Abrams encounter with Yahweh and the question was that a Liminal Moment a generative moment?)

In addition I’ve been wondering about basic needs of the Liminal Personae.

I’ve begun to think about the passage - basic needs. Food, Water, Sleep, Movement.

The circular form a kind of navigational device, measuring the character for travel. I want to put metric markings down the rod.

More paddles just because I can’t leave them alone.

A travel bed - but more.

The cooking pot and stick.

///

Shopping

https://www.rapidmetals.co.uk/product/copper-1-4-dia/

 

It seemed like a good idea at the time /  by Justin Harrison

Mud

Smells bad

I look weird

Forest smells good, wet

Trees look fecund, perfect light

I rush

Forget to photo in sequence. My keenness blindness

Mud applies odd full of sticks and stones

Realise the smell is also duck shit

Drawing is hard, feels silly

Like a bad idea, not how I had imagined

Run down my arms

Not as good idea as I thought

Drawing is not working how I planned

Maybe that’s ok

I left in a hurry and didn’t ask the tree how it felt about it

///////

The above is my notes - I was gonna write a detailed journal entry but I think I prefer just the notes.

Further thoughts.

I think about using terracotta clay it would apply easier and I’d have more control with the drawing but I also know that the materials would need to be integrous, If I were to buy the clay it might feel synthetic.

I need to look around and find a river with red clay, maybe go onsite and collect it and work with it. A set of drawings across 5 or so trees?

Sources for naturally occurring clay

https://victorianweb.org/science/geology/smith3.html

https://nativehands.co.uk/2016/11/wild-pottery-clay-digging/#:~:text=You%20can%20also%20look%20for,area%2C%20that's%20a%20good%20sign.

I did like the blackness of the pond mud against the lightness of the tree. It has a quality to it that feels satisfying. The materials matter. It was textured too with leaf matter and sticks, this to gave it a unique quality and tone of voice.

I do need to go back and visit. See how the drawing changes as it returns to the forest 🌳

A ritual tool

Addendum///

I returned a month or so later, I really wasn’t expecting to find much and was suprised to find most of it intact. I find that I like it but not enough, it feels like it needs more, but I can’t quiet figure what. I do like that I’m drawing in mud. Mud made up from decaying elements of the immediate surrounding, leaves , twigs, dust and yes duck feaces. Some how it rising up from the ground feels interesting. I do still worry about it feeling ‘Andy Goldsworthy’ but again if I could push the work a bit harder it might stand on it’s own better.

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Passage /  by Justin Harrison

There is something about this that I like, I’m not sure how I feel about reducing my drawings to a gif. But then I’m not sure it’s reduced them, it’s done something else for me. I wonder where I could take it, and what it means right now.

I think there is an element of strangeness that I like, the transitioning the movement that is somehow honest, it’s not trying to be an animation with a distinct narrative. It’s a broken moment, a haunting, ‘time is out of joint’.

I’m now obsessing which can be a good and a bad thing. The paddle is now a key object, I’m making them in my studio and in my drawings. The tool for navigation, immediate and resides in our hands, yet partners with a craft of some description.

I’ve been listening to Anish Kapoor interviews and reading text as research for my paper - and them there was a brief discussion about making a series of the same object or work can up, and I found it encouraging, to explore an idea - open it up and out. I think I worry that I am just repeating iterations endlessly and that there is no value to it. I am annoined that I feel like I need permission.

The drawings are strangely pleasing for me, I’m connecting with the way the ink bleeds out to granular and the empty negative that it creates.

This particular media I’m using was ironically made by Stuart Smeple in a reaction to Kappor’s Vantablack, it has a quality in its miss use that I especially like. When diluted it has a granular property that separates out into delicious bands of gradients, leaving small tidal marks and tracks. Something deeper in me connects to specific marks, moments. Yet it leaves this gritty feel, like BhaBha’s scalar interstices, the bundle divisable. Collective moments spread across time inconsistently. The bleeding through, the threshold melts, margins fade.

This is a slightly modified version form my first attempt. I worry that this could mean hours on my computer. Have I really only discovered animation now?

 

I bled on it, it must be finished. /  by Justin Harrison

Really wish I’d put a coat of Aussie wax on it, just three coats of neats foot oil feels too vulnerable. But then it is a fragile little piece. The wood is thin, knotted and brittle, the leather porous and sensitive to it’s environment (including my blood - I jabbed my finger several times sewing it).

I think that’s what the piece is about, sensitivity and vulnerability in passage. But its more as well///

I finished late Sunday night - just in time for Monday, an annoying tension of kinda rushing it but then taking too long. ((( Note this started out as a piece that’s supposed to be made in an hour)))  But what’s come out of it is interesting and suggests to me that I should attempt the experiment of’ limited making time’ again,especially as the concept was generated through that process.

I’m intrigued by the artwork thats been made and what it touches on: Restoration, RePlacement, Resistance. Strongholds (my ref - not a theme clearly described in the piece) Momento mori, death as passage, way marker, the fear that permeates change.  

/// I’ve burnt the wood so intentionally, the surface quality is really important, transitions from raw wood into charred wood through to high polished grain and knots. I’m wanting to use the visceral feel of materials and their treatments to articulate.

I am curious to work with the fencing panels some more ( I have a bunch stashed in the studio), sanding and polishing to transform it to find value and beauty. \\\ I spoke in class the other day about ‘Agitating Agents’ people or situations that rub us up the wrong way, how they can work to refine us, teach us. Slough off the surface detritus. Process and change and discomfort.

I also wonder what would happen to the piece if I were to change it’s scale and it 3 meters high. But then I’d really have to love the piece to commit to it.

///////

Is this work  a documentation of passage or an intercession for change? or both I can’t really decide at the moment but then maybe I don’t need to and it’s in the process of practice I may find answers.


 

Passage between the binary and self-decomposition /  by Justin Harrison

Image my own

This ia an image I took some time ago, but it came to mind after my last blog entry. It’s the limp bird from the game paintings and the glove at the road side.

I previously posted it on Instagram back in October 2019. What’s curious is the entry I made. I wrote “…it’s a preoccupation with transition and being in ‘passage’ - that perhaps there’s a moment between binary markers’

This really is a preoccupation of mine. But why? Why do I focus on this area?

The bird will soon be rendered down to it’s constituent parts, as it gives itself up to the soil, feather and bone to minerals and proteins. Carbon dioxide, water, simple sugars and mineral salts.

I looked up what happens to a body that is decomposing. Breaking down to simpler elements. Then I discovered this delicious passage.

“Decomposition begins several minutes after death, with a process called autolysis, or self-digestion. Soon after the heart stops beating, cells become deprived of oxygen, and their acidity increases as the toxic by-products of chemical reactions begin to accumulate inside them. Enzymes start to digest cell membranes and then leak out as the cells break down. This usually begins in the liver, which is enriched in enzymes, and in the brain, which has high water content; eventually, though, all other tissues and organs begin to break down in this way. Damaged blood cells spill out of broken vessels and, aided by gravity, settle in the capillaries and small veins, discolouring the skin.”

Mo Costandi - 25 May 2015 Guardian Online.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/neurophilosophy/2015/may/05/life-after-death

It’s like poetry.

Still Life with Dead Game, a Monkey, a Parrot, and a Dog
Frans Snyders

 

Bag Dump /  by Justin Harrison

I’m not entirely sure where this is going… but there is a thread that runs out from this. I’ve collected these images all formally arranged elements from a bag. There’s something about collection, organisation, display and function. All the items are things I’d like to own, but beyond this it feels like a narrative is buried beneath all of this.

I’ve had this though about travellers, individuals ‘passing through’, there location being ‘in passage’ and place being where they pause for a time, and or where they are going.

There is an element of folk law to it too, I feel like there are deep stories that I need to unearth, maybe in the making, as I make and collect elements for a travellers pack.

Who is this traveller?
What is their purpose?
Where are they heading?
Where did they come from?

Currently Reading:::
The Rites of Passage /// Arnold van Gennep

Currently Listening To:::
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46VHdzSdB7k

 

Passing Through - Collograph Print /  by Justin Harrison

‘Passing Through’ Collograph print on paper. (Image my own)

I needed to find a school/studio safe process to seal the collograph plate. This was a test of the new sealing process.

I kinda like it.

He’s got something going for him and he’s going places, even if he is dead.

Another fast piece, made in under an hour. Although not one sitting - more like 10mins, 30 mins, 20mins. I wasn’t timing but you get the idea.

Again there is a pleasure for. me with drawing and by extension printmaking, specifically collograph. I get to draw three times. Once when I first draw the image, second when I cut the plate and third when I wipe the plate.

There is something deeply satisfying about drawing for me, it’s visceral, and somehow beyond my words. I long to make a drawing so honest and from so deep within that it it falls off the page.

Again I’m connecting to my materials trying to find a tone of voice to them, also not thinking too much.

Rhythmns.

I also wondered about encaustic wax, I stumbled across it today reading a web page about it. There’s a quality to it that I suspect could be really delicious. I’ve set drawings in wax before by just dipping but this is a more intentional process, proving layers and tones. In addition it gives me another material - another dialect. I’m concerencd that I’m adding yet another process to learn and adding more time whichh I really don’t have right now…

Tick tock….

 

Encombre #2 /  by Justin Harrison

I’ve been wanting to add video sketches to my work for a while, and finally found the opportunity. I took an alternative route to work and discovered this delicious spectacle.

The ground had opened up and ushered forth. The tarmac blacked and fractured. Sunken and violent. The street transformed from it’s passive state to a site of unknown menace and promise. I felt that were I to enter the water could be relocated to another space. Transformed. Passage.

 

Dear /  by Justin Harrison

Following yesterdays post I looked up Game painting, specifically deer. The major players Jan Van Weenix and Frans Snyders. I guess it would come to this sooner or later…dead animals. So here is my confession.

Hi my name is Justin Harrison and I have a thing about dead animals. My friends if the see road kill - think of me or send pictures. This theme always seem too manifest sooner or later in my work.

I guess maybe the MA is the place to follow this moribund thread.

I’m thinking about a body of work and this actually plays very well into it, I’ll need to research some more, but revolves around ‘bag dumps’ that you see often on Instagram, Youtube - If you follow Bushcrafters or survivalists. I like the idea of making the contents of a bag dump but for a 17th Century Game Keeper of for an imagined traveller/ initiate.

Kit for the rite of passage///
Knife, Compass, cordage, bag, invented tools.

There is something I love about the game paintings, the colours and lighting, a strange tableaux. As I look through the galleries of images I could collect more…

I feel like there are some interesting and deeper connections, but having had very little sleep for the past few days I’m gonna trust that I’ll figure it out…

Image References:
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/a-huntsman-cutting-up-a-dead-deer-with-two-deerhounds-jan-weenix.html
A Huntsman cutting up a Dead Deer, with Two Deerhounds
Jan Van Weenix

https://www.passionforpaintings.com/en/art-gallery/sir-edwin-henry-landseer-painter/of-a-dead-stag-oil-painting-reproduction
Of A Dead Stag
Painted originally by: Landseer Sir Edwin Henry
Recommended: 25 x 18 "

http://community.artauthority.net/work.asp?wid=64064&pos=2
Title: Still Life with Dead Deer, Heron and Hunting Implements
Artist: Weenix, Jan
Year: c. 1690 Medium: Oil on canvas Dimensions: 47 15/16 x 62 3/8 in. (121.8 x 158.4 cm)

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O131738/still-life-with-a-dead-oil-painting-snyders-frans/
Still Life with a Dead Stag
Snyders, Frans 
Oil Painting 1640s Antwerp

https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/still-life-with-dead-game-138951
Still Life with Dead Game
Frans Snyders (1579–1657)
Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/SK-A-591
A Dog and a Cat near a partially disembowelled Deer, Jan Baptist Weenix, 1645 - 1660 oil on canvas, h 180cm × w 162cm × d 12cm × w 46kg

 

Liminal/Threasholds, Threashing Floor and a sneaky Star Wars reference /  by Justin Harrison

I found a curious connection between the films: Star Wars - Empire Strikes Back/Revenant/Man in the wilderness/Rivers of Fundament (Matthew Barney). The visceral and jarring motif of entering and exiting an enviscerated horse/ cow/ tonton for survival and as a metaphor for death, rebirth and transformation. I’m not sure if there is a classical reference that precedes these films - or any myths or stories. .(I’m not sure how ‘Fine Art’ Starwars is but I’m gonna crowbar it in cos… well it’s Star Wars).

However the motif has caught my attention as it also demonstrates the metaphor of a Liminal place a space where a transformation occurs or a threshold crossed - albeit a psychological one perhaps.

In addition in these contexts there is a dual form of sacrifice:
1.The host animal/ mothering agent.
2. The form of a ‘little death’ of the subject ( a passing through) and then a transformation upon exiting.

In Barneys film there is an uncomfortable feel as the Demi God character enters what appears to be a very dead and decaying carcass, which asks the question what kind of transformation would occur in this context?. Much of Barney’s work is unsettling and visual grotesque so it almost suggest something sinister and perhaps rather than a transformation it would be a corruption and deformation////

A place we fear to look ||||||||||||||

The envisceration is profound - a forced space for the incumbent. Perhaps this is what is jarring is the ‘manufacturing’ of a liminal space. I wonder if true transformation can only come through a naturally occurring spiritual liminal space. Fabricated ceremonies lead to a performance of transformation where perhaps the change is only superficial. Which we could say of Revenant, which actually has two moments the first being when Hugh Glass is partially buried being believed to be near death, and then the act of survival where he uses his horses carcass to shelter from a snow storm.

Death and Rebirth///

Tranformation//?

Deformation///

Threshold///

Threashing floor///

This has also had me thinking of the biblical reference fo the threshing floor - a metaphor for separation of the good form the bad - it also has a liminal essence to it for those who are prepared to confront their own short comings and be transformed by a purification process.

More to be extrapolated but I keep loosing my train of thought////

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZy99QDPhpw

 

Vertical and Horizontal /  by Justin Harrison

More of this preoccupation with the horizontal and vertical. A liminal place of threshold and transition. Yet a more positive one with a clear exit.

I like the tangle of the cold metal, Interrupted by colour. Inference in ascension.

///The temporary outcast

“It is in this interim space and time that, while old symbols and pardigms are destroyed, new ones are generated, which can eventually feed back into the central arenas of society.”

Piazza - Discourses of identity in liminal places and spaces 

\\\ 1 + 1 = 3

 

Theres a maxim /  by Justin Harrison

Charlie.jpg

There’s a maxim that says to question everything. Which makes sense and yet is impossible. I can’t question everything I don’t have the time or mental capacity. Yet I do question a lot and it’s tiring. I do want some truth some safety. A small patch of ground to stand on. 

So much art made is ‘questioning’ and today I am irritated by it. It feels lazy, especially as so much questioning art doesn’t offer anything but the question - ‘great thanks more fundamental queries to add to my existential anxiety’.

So what? What am I asking for? Art that offers answers? I would be very mistrusting of that.

Honesty is that it? Am I back on wanting honest art when I’m not even sure I can do that myself?

 

It's not funny /  by Justin Harrison

IMG_4664.jpg

I need to figure out why I like this image so much. Taken from Todd Philips ‘Joker’ this scene shows Arthur collapsed after being beaten by youths. He’s in the throws of pain and humiliation and incapacitation, laying prone in the middle of a side alley. Somehow the bright colours add to the jarring nature of the spectacle. The buildings and passage frame him in and out of darkness. I wonder if this could be described as a liminal place but one absent of a ‘master of ceremonies’ to lead him through, no ritualised pattern to follow and exit from a rite of passage. One that Arthur has to deliver himself out of transformed but not transcendent.

A joke, but it’s him, he’s the joke.

But he’s not funny.

The role of the Joker, in some cultures is the trickster, who by their nature stand on the threshold of the sacred and profane, the heyókȟa in Lakota Culture. Stood between the two worlds they exist between the lines.

Also Cayote in indigenous American stories, is a trickster straddling two worlds.

Liminal spaces in ‘rites of passage’ serve a constructive purpose. But when there is no rite to be led through and no leader, then there is decay.